Parties at the European level and the legitimacy of EU socio-economic policy

Article 138A of the Treaty on European Union envisages 'parties at the European level' as integrators in the EU system. However, this conception is unrealistic. Firstly, the relationship between parties and legitimacy in advanced democracies has fundamentally changed. And, secondly, transnational parties are limited by the EU institutional structure and the dominance of national-territorial interests in EU politics. Accepting these constraints, however, the transnational party federations have begun to focus only on socioeconomic issues, and to compete over the setting of the medium-term agenda on these questions in the European Council.